Mary sits in the clerk's office, awaiting the verdict of her murder trail. Through a sequence of flashbacks, Mary looks back at her life and we see her struggles to overcome poverty early in her life, which in the end leads to her involvement with a group of gangsters. Wellman's Midnight Mary is a rather detailed examination of how one woman's early environment leads her down a path of a questionable lifestyle which ultimately could doom her. That being said, this is not a weak character, but rather a tough woman whose been shaped by her environment to do whatever is neccessary, whether through manipulation or good old fashioned hardwork, to survive in the society she inhabits. I have got to acknowledge the fact that Loretta Young was so damn pretty in her early years-such beautiful big eyes she had. Anyway, this is just a great story, that is actually in-the-end rather uplifting, particularly for a Wellman film.